Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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belief and unbelief, faith and scepticism that all believers experience”. 832 In Edge of the
Earth the monk’s attitudes, which “swing between belief and unbelief” in his retelling
of the story of The Navigator seem to echo the director’s own perspective: “My own
religious attitudes are very ambiguous. Religious faith is an enormous leap to make.
Somewhere I want to believe in those things, but at the same time in some ways, I’m
quite sceptical. So the equation changes all the time for me”. 833 All this is very
reminiscent of McCahon as the great example of the New Zealand artist who used
religious discourse to raise issues of life and death neglected by what he saw as the
prevailing local pragmatism and materialism.
The director’s admiration for “‘transcendental’ filmmakers reflects his own interest in
looking beyond the purely physical world of action. They include the French Catholic
Robert Bresson and the Danish Lutheran Carl Dreyer, noted for their austere
contemplation of spiritual themes”, or as Ward describes them, “filmmakers who are
interested not just in the drama immediately in front of them, but in what is happening
on the other side of that”. 834 In those terms, issues of spirituality lie at the heart of
Ward’s films. In A State of Siege Ward explores the notion of unknown forces that can
not be rationally explained. Maori spirituality is one of the primary themes of In Spring
One Plants Alone; and Vigil explores the contrast between the relatively more sceptical
and pragmatic view of the world represented by Birdie and Ethan and Toss’s mystical,
visionary notions - a debate that is continued in The Navigator. If Russian filmmakers
such as Tarkovskij explored religious themes as a challenge to Communist materialism,
then Ward can be seen as challenging the limited horizons of New Zealand society (and
film culture).
One aspect of The Navigator that represents a departure from his previous work is its
shift away from a female central character. The world of The Navigator is virtually all
male, with the exception of Linnet who plays a very minor role in the film. Dale’s
feminist reading of the film makes the point that maleness is “normative” for a Christian
reading of the film. “The central story, as always, is of phallic erection, here of the
cross on the spire”. She does however, argue that there is a feminine aspect in the
film’s subtext: the one woman in the story is “a source of life-not-death in the village
832 Denham, "Profile: Heaven's above, a Religious Filmmaker," 41.
833 Denham, "Profile: Heaven's above, a Religious Filmmaker," 41.
834 Denham, "Profile: Heaven's above, a Religious Filmmaker," 41.